Welcome to the first Magnani blog series: The 12 Days of Halloween.For the next few posts, we will be treating you to the best of the best Halloween- and marketing-centric stuff.

Since we will devote so many posts to one holiday, now would be a great time to talk about why Halloween is such a big deal--Money.

All the candy, costumes, decorations, pumpkins and parties make Halloween the second biggest holiday (next to Christmas) for retail shopping. It's estimated that over $6 billion is spent annually on this holiday. Surprisingly, the candy only makes up 1/3 of those sales. With all this spending comes great opportunity. And no one knows how to seize (ahem, exploit) opportunities better than ad people. In fact, there are two agencies solely focused on the holiday.

Even more shocking facts about Halloween: -3rd largest party occasion, after New Year's and The Super Bowl -More candy is sold than on Valentine's Day -More parties than New Year's Eve -Two-thirds of all grown-ups will celebrate Halloween and half of them will spend more than $100 doing so -20% of consumers start Halloween shopping by the end of September